


Pretty

by idrilhadhafang



Series: Star Wars Rewrites — Backstory [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Body Image, Bottom Ben Solo, Evil Snoke, Gay Poe Dameron, Jedi Ben Solo, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Backstory, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Ben Solo, POV Kylo Ren, Past Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron Is A Good Boyfriend, Romantic Fluff, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Snoke Being a Dick, Tragic Romance, Unhappy Ending, Virgin Ben Solo, physical imperfections, virgin Poe Dameron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 22:59:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13177011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Ben Solo doesn’t consider himself pretty.





	Pretty

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Physical imperfections 
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

  
He’s not what one would call pretty. Not really.

He’s never looked like either of his parents — not his father’s roguish looks or his mother’s almost delicate beauty. He’s looked like...well, himself. Awkward. As he’s gotten older, he just gets awkward in other places, like his nose.

His father tries to comfort him over it, of course. “You’ve got the Solo nose”, he says, and Ben thinks that of all the things he’d prefer to inherit from his father, his nose isn’t one of them. And he doesn’t recall his father having big ears either.

It’s just two traits that he regrets having. Two traits that he doesn’t understand. Two traits of many, actually.

He’s not ugly, per se, but he’s gawky and awkward and strange-looking, he knows that much. Nothing compared to Poe, who just seems effortlessly beautiful, with his curly dark hair, his golden smooth skin, his almost delicate features. Poe, who was already cool when they were both younger — as they get older, Ben eighteen and Poe twenty-one, Poe gets more beautiful and accomplished, and Ben gets more awkward — starts falling in love.

Yes. He’s in love. And Poe has no idea. Maybe he was in love from the start and this has just burst into bloom. He’s in love, and Poe has no idea. While he’s out in the New Republic Navy, Ben’s desperately in love with him.

The question is, is he even in Poe’s league? They don’t exactly match.

Ben doesn’t say any of this out loud, of course. But on his datapad, in his journal, he records what he wants to say. Not unsent letters — that would just be strange and creepy, Ben thinks. Just journal entries where he writes bits of poetry in prose that would melt Poe’s heart. _You walk in beauty, in grace, in light — and being in your presence is like being in the presence of sunlight._

He imagines what it would be like. Walking through markets holding Poe’s hand, and in that moment, his hand doesn’t seem so clumsy and large. Holding him — being careful, of course. He worries Poe will break. Kissing him, and hopefully, his wretched nose won’t get in the way. He imagines what it would be like, and he can escape from a reality where Poe can never be his.

***

When Poe reciprocates, one of the things that seems new is the matter of his facial imperfections. His freckles are one thing. His nose is another.

When Poe stands on tiptoe (something that Ben finds endearing, among many things) to kiss his nose, Ben can’t help but laugh. It’s so unexpected that he laughs. “What’s that for?”

“You’re cute.”

Ben smiles a bit. Then, “My nose is too big.”

“No, it’s not. It’s fine.” Poe kisses it again, probably because he can. “It’s very distinguished, you know.”

Ben snorts. “Distinguished in terms of being too big for my face.”

“It makes you look princely. Pretty appropriate, isn’t it?”

Ben supposes technically he is a prince. A prince from a lost planet that he’ll never know. Like he doesn’t have enough titles to live up to! Jedi, smuggler’s son, pilot, dangerous, prince...Poe is just one of a few people where he can just be Ben Solo, without those titles hovering over him.

“Poe...”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not the man I should be. Or the prince I should be.”

Poe kisses his large hand, almost prince-like in a sense. “You’re the man I love. That’s what matters.”

“Yeah.” And the idea of being good enough, simply good enough for Poe, is too wonderful to be real, and yet here it is. Ben is good enough, more than good enough. He truly is.

***

It’s not just his face that’s imperfect, but his body as well. His hands are too large, his chest is too large, everything is too large. Poe, on the other hand, seems to adore it.

“You feel strong,” he says. “It’s like I’m protected...when I’m with you.” He puts his hands on Ben’s chest. His too big, meaty chest. His hands seem so small against Ben’s chest, so delicate. It just adds to Ben’s worry that if he’s not careful with this precious man, he’ll break him by accident.

Ben looks at him. “You feel helpless next to me,” he says, running a hand over Poe’s cheek, a thumb over his full lower lip. “And you love it.” Of all the things to unearth while reading Poe’s mind, he hasn’t expected to come across a certain proclivity.

“I do, Ben.”

“Of all the things I know about you...” Ben caresses his face, runs a thumb over his lip again. “I want to know all about you, Poe.”

“What don’t you know about me at this point?” Poe tries to sound jokey, but he instead sounds terribly, desperately aroused just by Ben’s touch. Ben has to feel some pride in knowing that. Knowing that no one else could ever, truly, coax this much desire out of Poe Dameron just by a touch.

“I know a lot. I want to know more.” He needs more; he can’t help it. Poe is so precious, so beautiful, and he’s like the air that Ben would kill to breathe. There are too many times he feels like he’s drowning, or falling apart, and it seems like Poe is just one of the people holding him together.

“You have me. All of me.” And there’s such a purity just in that promise, that sort of giving over of one’s very self, that Ben loves him more.

Their lips touch, gentle, tender, and Ben feels a sort of peace that he doubts that the Code could ever offer.

***

When they make love for the first time, Ben won’t deny he’s nervous. He shimmies out of his robes, all but stumbles out of them, and all the while, he worries. He’s already going over the imperfections in his head — one wouldn’t usually consider too much muscle to be a physical flaw, but in this case, he’s worried. Worried about being too large, too meaty...

And yet Poe’s looking at him like there’s no one else in the galaxy he’d rather desire. His only desire is standing there, naked, and the amount of worship in his eyes is enough to relax Ben, at least slightly.

Poe undresses next, and Ben notices that he’s short, muscular but not overly so, a contradiction in terms of his body. He’s lean and yet curvy on the bottom, and there’s a slight amount of pudge below his navel that he immediately tries to suck in.

Ben smiles at him. “Relax.”

Poe does so.

“You look beautiful,” Ben says. “And by the stars, there’s no one else that I’d rather want.”

They don’t know what to do. They’re both new to lovemaking, both new to all of this, and in the end, they decide to go with what feels good. And it does feel good, amazing actually. It feels like Iego itself, even as Poe worships parts of his body that Ben never thought could be desirable. He trembles, moans Poe’s name, and as he falls into the patterns of lovemaking, reciprocates by worshipping Poe’s body in turn (much to Poe’s delight), Ben knows there is no place in that moment he’d rather be.

  
***

The mask that he wears as Kylo Ren may be unnecessary to some, but to Kylo Ren, it’s a shield that he needs to have, that he all but depends on. It’s a shield from who he truly is, the boy that, eleven years ago, loved with the sort of intensity that would burn a galaxy down.

He doesn’t have to be reminded of his face. That unwelcome face, a face that never looked like either of his parents, a face that never lived up to expectations. An almost symbolic face, for that matter. He wears the armor of the Knights of Ren, and it is his new identity, who he was no doubt meant to be from the start.

Doomed. A broken man. Broken men were never meant to be whole, at least not broken men like him. Without the mask, he is naked. Without the mask, he is Ben Solo. The last thing he wants to be. Without the mask, Ben is on display, and he can’t...can’t want that.

In his mind, Kylo Ren remembers a young man who saw his imperfections as beautiful, and he wonders what would have happened if that man came with him. If he’d told the truth. But to be a Knight of Ren is to be alone, Snoke has told him.

Kylo Ren leaves the room, still wearing the mask, and knows that mask, that armor, is his identity now.


End file.
